Apache Spider Queen
by Akktri
Summary: The tenth Doctor and Martha discover evil lurking in the old western town of Wyandotte.
1. Chapter 1: Anderson Farms

Author's note: I got sick of seeing Doctor Who "tea westerns", so I thought I'd try my hand at writing one from the _real_ old west.

* * *

Tooling around the universe in a time traveling phone box is not always as exciting as you'd think. Sometimes we're stuck floating in space for hours while my friend, The Doctor, works on the machinery.

One day, the Buddy Holley looking man was lying on the floor, pulling wires out of that big arcade machine looking thing near the entrance, and it was taking forever.

"Go take a swim," he said after hearing me sighing for the umpteenth time. "It'll do you some good. Get some exercise and cool off. This might take awhile."

The understatment of the year.

"I didn't bring a swimsuit," I said.

"Borrow Rose Tyler's. Or Jo's. Look around in their rooms. I'm sure you'll find something that fits."

Our time machine, the TARDIS, is really big on the inside, kind of like Snoopy's doghouse on the Peanuts. It contains another dimension, which is why I didn't blink when he mentioned a swimming pool or bedrooms.

"Wear someone else's bathing suit? Gross!"

He slid out from under the machine on one of those boards auto mechanics use.

"Martha," he said to me. "We have a washer and drier."

And so I rolled my eyes and set off to find a bathing suit.

I idly followed the wall, passing by a chemistry lab, a trophy room, and our kitchen. After wandering around a bit more, I came across a room belonging to SJS. I didn't know what that meant, but I saw the initials on a handkerchief.

What she had didn't fit me, so I went on until I found another place, this one right out of the eighties. It seemed someone named Ace had owned it.

Although outdated, she seemed to be my size, so I took her swimsuit to the TARDIS laundry for a bit, then put it on and took a dip in the library pool.

Yeah, I don't know why we have a pool in a library either, but the owner is a strange bird.

About an hour later, I got dressed and checked on the Doctor again.

He was still poking around. I sighed and plopped down on one of the pilot chairs.

"There!" he said at last, pulling out. "The power should route to the proper channels now."

Ever afraid that I might someday have to use that information, I asked him what he meant.

"Well," he said with false modesty. "I merely arrayed a few conduits so that, say, we need to tow a large object out of a dimensional rift, we can do that without overloading the engine."

"Super," I said.

"Have you ever been to Disneyland?"

I grinned and told him I'd been there once as a kid and loved it.

The Doctor just poofed out his cheeks. "But why be boring? We could visit the place in the future, when all the new stuff is added...OR!" he put weighty emphasis on that last word as he flipped switches on the console. "How about we go there directly after the first grand opening! That way, you won't be paying an arm and a leg for bottled water!"

I shrugged. "Sounds fun to me!"

And so he busied himself at the levers and switches.

Ordinarily, he'd do that for a minute, then we'd be there, but then something in the machine exploded like a firecracker and he was under the console again.

"Not to worry, this will only take a minute."

"That's what you said last time," I groaned.

The man was scrawny, in terms of men. He wasn't my cup of tea. But when you're traveling so much across the galaxy, it gets lonely, and I found myself staring at his butt, and other things as he worked, opening panels, fixing wires, etcetera.

At last he stood up and said, "There!" with an air of finality.

And he was back to flipping switches and pulling levers.

"Doc," I said to him. "Have you ever had sex?"

You should never ask these types of questions while a man is trying to pilot you through a time vortex.

I saw him blush, and I think he pushed a few incorrect buttons. "Now really Martha. Why-"

"I found women's underclothes in some of these rooms. Some of it is...a little racy."

He cleared his throat. "Well they did have a very high opinion of me, but I can only assure you I have not. Let's just say my body is not configured for that particular operation."

"So you're saying..."

He took a deep breath. "It's like plugging a coffee maker from your kitchen into an American wall outlet."

Before I could interject anything, he added, "Disanalogy: There are no adaptors for this type of thing. Believe me, I've looked."

"But you kiss women," I said.

"I admit it gets lonely, but so does the family dog. And that never looks pretty, now does it?"

He frowned at the monitor. "Oh no. This won't do at all." But he seemed relieved to have a distraction.

"What," I sighed. "What is it this time?"

I noticed him grinning nervously at me. "No worries. I'll have it fixed in a nanosecond!"

Famous last words.

He pushed a few more buttons, and his spaceship made a lot of noise, rocking back and forth, and then it seemed to settle on something.

He threw open the doors with an air of triumph. "Here we are then! Disneyland!"

I stared outside and frowned.

It was a pasture. Surrounded by barbed wire. I saw a cow galloping away.

"A hundred years too early?" I guessed aloud.

Doc frowned at the monitors. "No, this should be the right time and place for the grand opening."

He took a deep breath. "Of course we may have to walk a few kilometers."

I winced. "How many is a few?"

He shrugged. "Not sure. I...think..."

He scrunched up his face. "I mean, I believe we are a little east of the place. With any luck, we'll just walk a bit west and stumble across a sign or the parking lot.

I frowned. A lot of times the doctor would say we were going somewhere when we were actually somewhere else. But here I couldn't really tell either way. California did have farms.

So with a shrug, I followed him outside, and immediately regretted wearing my nice pumps. There were cow pies everywhere.

"Doc, could you have possibly found a better landing spot?" I said, wrinkling my nose at the smell.

The Doctor took a deep breath like he were smelling roses. "And where is the fun in that?"

"My shoes! They're ruined!"

He only laughed as he marched ahead. "Cows! I bet we had them terrified, dropping a big blue box right out of nowhere! Must have scared the-"

He frowned as he lifted his shoe out of a manure pile. "Well! I think there should be a hose pipe somewhere on the premises! C'mon!"

And we marched on up the field to a gate along the fence, where a slack jawed hillbilly in overalls stared at us while idly chewing tobacco.

The first thing he said to us was, "Have you been messing with my cows?"

"Oh no," the Doctor lied.

"What's with the fancy getups? You in a traveling show?"

"Something like that."

The Doctor scratched his head. "The thing is, as you can see, my assistant and I are lost, and we need directions. Could you kindly point us in the direction of Disneyland, or Disney World?"

The stranger gave him a blank look, chewing his snaw for a moment. "What."

"Disneyland. The most artificial place on earth. Heard of it?"

The man furrowed his brow. "What's a Disney? That some kinda whiskey?"

Doc shook his head. "Are we anywhere close to California?"

The man burst out laughing. "You must have some powerful moonshine in that little blue box of yours!"

We pretended to laugh along with him.

Lowering his voice, the man said, "Tell you what. I'll let you keep your little still on my property if you let me have some tonight." And he elbowed my friend conspiratorially.

Doc nodded. "Fair's fair. Tonight then."

I looked at him like he were crazy. Or maybe drunk in real life.

He just gave me this look that said, "Relax, I've got this."

Looking embarrassed, the Doctor said, "So. We're so drunk we don't even know which way is up. Can you please tell us where we are?"

The man laughed again. "This here's Wyandotte Kansas. It's named after the Injuns that found this place. You're standing in Anderson Farms. I figure if you want to get to California, you've got a _long walk_ ahead of you!"

He shot me a glance, then frowned, dropping his voice to a low whisper. "You'd better get going `fore it gets dark, and I'd be real careful where you take that nigra of yours, `specially after sundown. I've heard they hang `em around here."

"That's it," I said. "Doc, let's go."

I've seen _Roots_, and I know enough not to want to hang around...whatever time period it happened to be, but the Doctor had this look like he wanted to change everything...or show that he didn't fear mob rule.

He paced back and forth across the dirt road outside the gate, apparently wondering what he should do with me.

A moment later, a fat woman in a petticoat and a hoop dress came down a nearby hill, hollering for a doctor.

"Doctor! Doctor!" she cried.

It was a miscommunication, but the Doctor went running anyway.

I really didn't want to follow him, but I saw him stop and wave at me frantically, so I took off after him, my smelly pumps clutched in my fingers as I ran barefoot across an unpaved dirt road.


	2. Chapter 2: Midwifery

When I arrived at the top of the hill, I suddenly realized I was further back in the past than I originally thought.

The woman had brought us to a dumpy clapboard house with the most antique looking fixtures and decorations I had ever seen.

The front door was a basic thing with iron hinges and no lock, and there wasn't any electricity.

"It's a miracle from God that I caught you when I did!" the woman was saying. "Ellie just went into labor a few minutes ago. Just tell us what to do, doctor. we want our baby to come out alive and healthy."

The Doctor swallowed. "Well, uh...Actually..."

He knew nothing about birthing, but I did.

"I'll do it," I said.

It was then that I noticed a sunbaked old cowboy type with a thick mustache and beard scowling at me.

"I ain't gonna have no niggar delivering my daughter's baby!"

The fat woman put a hand on the man's arm. "Now John, this here's a nursemaid. You know how nigras know more about birthing than regular folks do. This ain't a man's job!"

The man muttered something to her about me not having my papers, then he got even more annoying.

He was glaring at me, looking me right in the eye (nobody else had given me eye contact up to this point). "You listen, and you listen good. You keep your mouth shut, and you don't touch my baby once it's birthed. Got it?"

Since he just told me to keep my mouth shut, I just nodded. I really wasn't in the mood to get hanged.

And so I followed the woman into the house.

The interior was just as shoddy as the outside. Wooden boards slapped together to make walls and flooring. No wallpaper or carpeting or any of that.

The woman led me into a den lit by gas lamps, where a white woman lay moaning on a pile of pillows on a couch.

Since I wasn't allowed to talk, I wrote my orders on a notepad and handed them to the Doctor.

I have faced a lot of scary things in my time, Daleks, Cybermen, giant flesh eating monsters, but nothing is more terrifying than an enemy that you understand all too well.

Laser beams, teeth, destroying the world, dead is dead. But when the enemy could put you in chains and beat you, and maybe leave you with an unwanted pregnancy, that's a kind of terror a Dalek can never bring you.

This is why I didn't stand up to the man. He might not be alone in his bigotry.

At first, writing notes helped, and the Doctor was barking orders, but we didn't have all the stuff we needed since it was...some time in the old west, and the man slapped the notebook out of my hand when I tried to give it to the Doctor.

He started yelling that our kind weren't supposed to read and write, and when I said "that's tough," those words got me backhanded.

"That's it!" the Doctor shouted. "Slap my assistant again, and we'll walk out ald leave your baby where he or she or it is!"

I saw the man pull a gun. "You're gonna birth this baby," he said through his teeth. "Or you're gonna die."

"Well!" The Doctor clapped his hands. "Like I was saying earlier, I'd love to help, but I need some information from my assistant."

Noting the look of skepticism, he added, "My specialty is podiatry. Feet."

At last the man got the idea, and he even started apologizing.

I hate people who do that. Treat you like garbage, then start groveling when they get what they want.

I picked up my pad and wrote the Doctor another note.

For some reason, whether out of stupidity or sheer stubbornness, the man snatches the paper out of my hand and rips it to pieces.

He laughed at me and my predicament, but Doc wasn't amused at all.

Ordinarily, my friend is calm and cool and collected. Nothing ruffles his feathers, not giant fire breathing monsters, not boogeymen, not annoying London bobbies.

But he can't stomach prejudice or discrimination in any form.

Okay, well, maybe to preserve the course of history, but not when someone he cares about is being treated like some mindless piece of property.

And so Doc decides to throw a punch in the redneck's face.

In response, Mr. Redneck clobbers him so hard that he goes flying through the window.

Like I said, it was a very shoddy house.


End file.
